Year: 2012

  • Campus & Community

    Researchers awarded NARSAD grants

    The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation announced $11.9 million in new research grants, strengthening its investment in the most promising ideas to lead to breakthroughs in understanding and treating mental illness, including 19 grants to Harvard researchers.

  • Health

    Synthetic future

    In the synthetic biology lab of Professor Pamela Silver, researchers are looking for ways to make biological engineering faster, cheaper, and more predictable.

  • Health

    A story that doesn’t hold up

    A study conducted by Professor of Psychology Richard J. McNally and colleagues from the University of Groningen and the University of Amsterdam is casting doubt on the “amnesia barrier” that has long been a hallmark of multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder, by demonstrating that patients have knowledge of their other identities.

  • Science & Tech

    Butterflies heading north

    A Harvard study reveals that over the past 19 years, a warming climate has been reshaping Massachusetts butterfly communities.

  • Science & Tech

    Using evolution to understand pollution

    A tool rarely used to understand the impact of pollution on the natural world is evolution, an oversight that an environmental toxicologist says is robbing investigators of important information.

  • Campus & Community

    Teens learn and earn at Harvard

    Despite a bleak forecast for summer jobs for teenagers, Harvard employed more than 150 teens from Boston and Cambridge to work throughout the University. According to the teens, the skills they acquired include some valuable life lessons.

  • Science & Tech

    Soft robots go for color, camouflage

    Researchers have developed a system — inspired by nature — that allows soft robots to either camouflage themselves against a background, or to make bold color displays. Such a “dynamic coloration” system could one day have a host of uses, ranging from helping doctors plan complex surgeries to acting as a visual marker to help…

  • Science & Tech

    Soft Robots, in color

    Having already broken new ground in robotics with the development, last year, of a class of “soft”, silicone-based robots based on creatures like squid and octopi, Harvard scientists are now working to create systems that would allow the robots to camouflage themselves, or stand out in their environment.

  • Health

    CYCLOPS genes an Achilles’ heel in tumors?

    Researchers at Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT used new technology to explore a 19-year-old theory, discovering what may be an Achilles’ heel for cancer cells: essential genes disrupted in the process of becoming cancerous that can be attacked further with drug therapy.

  • Science & Tech

    Re-creating a slice of the universe

    Scientists at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and their colleagues at the Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies have made it possible to build a universe from scratch.

  • Science & Tech

    Making sense of memory

    It happens to all of us: We think we learned of the Sept. 11 attacks from a radio report, when, in fact, the news came from a co-worker; we’re sure the robber running from the bank was tall, when actually he was short; we remember waking up at 7 yesterday, when 8 is closer to…

  • Arts & Culture

    Wedding digital with traditional

    Event showcases metaLAB summer projects displaying ways to access, annotate, and remix knowledge in the digital age.

  • Health

    The tangled web around spiders

    A biologist with an affinity for spiders shared his passion, taking the audience on a tour of arachnids large and small and making a pitch for their conservation as natural pest control.

  • Campus & Community

    New dean for GSAS

    Xiao-Li Meng, chair of Harvard’s Department of Statistics, has been named dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

  • Nation & World

    Taking a stand on diversity

    After the Supreme Court announced it will hear a major case on affirmative action in October, Harvard joined 13 other universities to file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting considerations of race in college admissions.

  • Campus & Community

    Harvard carrying Dell on campus, online

    At Harvard’s Technology Products and Services, personal purchasers can now buy a selection of Dell notebooks, desktops, and displays on campus.

  • Arts & Culture

    A Julia-worthy feast

    An extensive archive at the Schlesinger Library illuminates the life and work of Julia Child, whose writings and TV show brought the world of French cuisine to the American masses.

  • Campus & Community

    The poetry of achievement

    Thirty high school students from the Boston area gathered for the Crimson Summer Academy’s annual poetry slam. The young scholars spend three consecutive summers on the Harvard campus, amid classes, projects, field trips, and cultural activities to achieve their dream: success at college.

  • Health

    Simplifying multidrug therapies

    As described in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a research team found that by studying how drugs interact in pairs, researchers can predict how larger combinations of drugs will interact.

  • Campus & Community

    Pausing to celebrate

    More than 100 faculty, students, and staff from the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology turned out for a barbecue to celebrate the full-professor promotions of Kevin Eggan, Konrad Hochedlinger, and Amy Wagers.

  • Campus & Community

    Amid the gold rush

    Harvard Olympians are making headway in the 2012 London Olympic Games.

  • Campus & Community

    O’Callahan a new director at HUHS

    Patrick O’Callahan has been named the new director of after-hours urgent care and the Stillman Infirmary at Harvard University Health Services.

  • Campus & Community

    Varsity status for women’s rugby

    Harvard will create a varsity women’s rugby team, to begin play in the 2013-14 season.

  • Health

    Estrogen and female anxiety

    Some women’s vulnerability to anxiety and mood disorders may be explained by their estrogen levels, according to new research by Harvard and Emory University neuroscientists.

  • Health

    Mercury pollution, still spreading

    With mercury contamination from coal burning and other industrial processes spreading in the environment, a new book edited by a Harvard Medical School staff member offers an overview, touching on chemistry, biology, and public health.

  • Campus & Community

    On bicycles built for 1,000

    The popular Hubway regional bike-share program, up and running in Boston, is expanding into the nearby communities of Cambridge, Somerville, and Brookline, with Harvard playing a key role.

  • Arts & Culture

    From cradle to grave, through history

    In “The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death,” Professor Jill Lepore shows, with wit and wisdom, that our existential anxieties are anything but new.

  • Nation & World

    Toward better aid

    Three Harvard specialist draw from field experience in a discussion of the past and future of humanitarian aid.

  • Campus & Community

    A really cool treat

    Harvard employees enjoyed ice cream and the Olympics on Friday during a gathering sponsored by the Office of the Executive Vice President.

  • Campus & Community

    Summer in the cities

    Planning and executing an outdoor festival for 1,000 people isn’t your typical teenage summer job, but 100 Boston-area teenagers employed as junior counselors in the Phillips Brooks House Association’s summer camps pulled it off without a hitch.